The Fairy
Lily POV
Lily likes to consider herself a normal teenager with the most average life out of everyone she knows.
That's why she's currently sitting in her classroom, English literature, as her two classmates, unfortunately her friends, pass notes to each other before bursting out into hushed giggles. She doesn't care, it's better than having them bother her with theoretical and hypothetical questions. Nonetheless, it's also a little distracting, and it only frustrates her more when one note lands on her desk, although this one doesn't come from them.
Sitting to her left is one of her best friends, Remus Lupin. He’s smart, so she “tolerates him” (at least, that's how she likes to act, of course).
On it, it reads ‘Are you studying in the library later?’ to which she sighs before turning to him and shaking her head, writing down ‘No, club meetings start today, I’m going to the chemistry one with Professor Slughorn :/’ and sending the note his way.
Remus leaned over, his voice barely above a whisper. “Chemistry club? You really do have a club for everything.” which made Lily roll her eyes, scribbling back, “Better than spending all day reading theory books and philosophical ones like you.”
He smirked, flicking the edge of her notebook. “I wouldn’t call writing a one-woman newspaper practical either.”
“Someone has to care about the school,” she shot back, though a grin tugged at her lips. Remus barely had time to reply before a loudclack echoed in the classroom. It wasn't that difficult to guess what happened, even people who were distracted could tell if they had spent more than a year with this class.
The teacher, Mrs. Mcgonagall, threw her board pen in the direction of her two friends, landing it sharply precisely on the tallest one's, James, table. Their giggles quickly stopped. Lily had nothing more than respect for that teacher, but she jolted a little at the loud noise. The teacher exhales deeply and gets ready to lecture the two boys, unfortunately for her and fortunately for Lily, the bell rings and they all leave the classroom without allowing the teacher any more words for the day.
Lily is the last to leave, though, because of course she was elected as the class representative, so she needs to make sure the classroom is left the same way they found it. Just another chore for her to do.
Done with the task at hand, she makes her way down the hall to the small classroom assigned to the chemistry club this year. The corridors hummed with activity as students spilled out of classrooms. Swinging the door open, she briefly takes in everyone in the room.
It’s mostly the same people from last year, except the ones who graduated, and a few new ones, 2 or 3. The classroom chairs are arranged in a circle, probably for the first day's icebreaker activity. She picked the one she was closest with. On the other side, in front of her, sat Severus, an old friend, next to him Avery, who looked busy eyeing another student and whispering to Snape’s ear with a few giggles, although he didn't react much. Curiously, Lily decided to look in the same direction as they both were, taking in the sight of a white-blonde-haired woman. She’s seen her before, she thinks, although not much. Lily’s pretty sure she's in the Ravenclaw class, and she’s also pretty sure she's heard off-hand remarks about her, too.
The Ravenclaw girl was for sure already attracting a bunch of attention, sitting weirdlycross-leggedon the chair, what looked like a sketchbook on her lap as she brushed her pencil over it, a plastic bag shaped weirdly on the floor, next to her messenger bag. And then it hits her - she’sstaring too, so she quickly averts her gaze by pulling out her notebook.
This Chemistry club wasn't the only activity that occupied Lily's time, no she is also part of the school's journaling club, which takes care of the school's newspaper, and it's honestly her favorite one. However that has seemed to bring on a huge issue, and that would be the fact no one has shown any interest in it other than Lily herself, which is just wonderful. So, she has been workingaloneon the next edition of the school’s newspaper, which could very well be the last if she doesn’t get anyone else to join the club because Principal Dumbledore does not want to fund a project of just a single student. And she blames itallon the stupid new gossiping page that has appeared on social media, The Quibblerbecause no one else seems to care about the news of the school anymore, onlygossip, and that’s truly upsetting in her own opinion, people should care and learn about nowadays journalism for the future!
No one knows who’s behind it, but once she does find out, she will for sure give them a piece of her mind. Gossip separates people, she's seen it firsthand in her best friend Mary. Her thought bubble burst as soon as Professor Slughorn made his way into the class and sat on one of the chairs, getting ready to begin introductions.
Soon, she learns the name of the girl who still seems too focused on her sketchbook, which honestly only made it look like she was totally uninterested in this club, Pandora Rosier, someone Lily quickly picks up that people donot like. Apparently, because she’s weird. Do people not have better reasons to dislike someone nowadays? They are not even trying to hide it, she’s been able to hear people whisper “the weirdo” twice or three times now, and it’s getting so rude she just has the urge to stand up and ask them to share with the rest. Still, she doesn't know her, so Lily holds back being confrontational in the first meeting, maybe Pandora can stand up for herself.
The icebreaker finally ends, and they’re all dismissed, thank Merlin for that, because Lily has far better things to do with her evening. But just as she steps outside the door, it becomes clear the ordeal isn’t quite over yet. Pandora, the new girl in the club, cuts in front of her so suddenly that Lily nearly stumbles. Up close, she’s even more breathtaking, and for a brief moment, Lily forgets to be annoyed. A faint scent of strawberries and fresh grass lingers in the air between them, something light and familiar, something Lily wouldn’t mind breathing in for hours.
She stares confusingly at her face. It looks like she’s trying to figure out how to speak for the first time, and then her gaze shifts to Pandora’s hands. She seems to be holding a… blank paper. No, there’s definitely something there, but she can’t tell, probably what kept her so busy the whole hour. Lily doesn't need to wonder for long, because after seeing her look down, Pandora seems to remember what she’s doing, handing her the paper, which turns out was a drawing of… herself. Huh? She’d been drawing her this whole meeting?
Pandora sucks in a deep breath and softly but urgently speaks,
“You look like one of the fairies I talk to in my dreams.” Pandora doesnotlook like she’s joking, in fact, she’s saying that like it's a normal thing everyone does and accepts. Lily barely has any time between staring at the drawing and Pandora before she smiles her goodbye and leaves, Lily staying there a little speechless but also a little red. A fairy? That’s the cutest compliment she thinks she’s ever received.
The drawing is amazing. Pandora drew her with wings, using a very light brush of the pencil to most likely contrast fragility and stronger strokes for Lily’s hair. She drew her chubbier body exactly how Lily remembers the old Greek statues she saw in history class of women they used to worship, to perfection. It makes her cheeks a little red, is this how Pandora viewed Lily? What does this mean? She’s astounded by the Ravenclaws’ girl's talent. Maybe one day she can ask her to draw for the school’s newspaper. For now, she ever so carefully folds the drawing and puts it inside her wallet, walking outside of the school.
It was already dark outside, and while Lily knew how safe the area was—after all, she’d walked home at this hour countless times before—the darkness still unsettled her. There was something about the inability to see what was lurking beyond the streetlights that made her uneasy. The shadows felt heavier tonight, the kind that pressed against her skin and made her grip her bag a little tighter. She fumbled in her pocket for her phone, considering calling Mary, who was probably finishing up her own club activities by now. And yet, before she could decide, the sound of footsteps behind her made her freeze for half a second. She turned slightly, just in time to see Severus stepping into view, his gaze steady as he came up to her side and matched her pace.
“Great,” she muttered under her breath, but not loud enough for him to hear. He glanced down at her, his expression unreadable, as usual, he liked not having people decipher whatever he was thinking about, Lily would know. “We can walk together until we get to my house,” he said, his voice even, almost like he had rehearsed.
Lily exhaled through her nose, weighing her options. Severus was her neighbor and technically harmless, but he was also her ex-best friend, a title that still stung every time she thought about it. Their history hung between them like a curtain she didn’t want to pull back. Once, they’d shared everything. Now, they were stuck in this strange limbo—neither strangers nor friends. Neutral, she supposed. Barely.
“Fine,” she replied after a pause, her tone clipped. “But don’t talk to me on a personal level, because we’re not.” The words came out sharper than she intended, but she didn’t correct herself.
Without waiting for a response, she took the first step forward, setting the pace. Snape didn’t say anything, and she wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse. They’d talk about everything when they had that child innocence, and now she just wants to sit and ask him all the questions that were left unanswered the moment Snape broke her heart and she hadn’t looked behind. How had he felt when everything fell apart between them? What was he even doing with his life now? Did he ever think about fixing what he’d broken—or was he just content to leave it all shattered? She knew she could ask, but what was the point? Snape had made his choice, and so had she.
Lily arrives home 35 minutes later, greeting her white cat first before moving on to saying hello to her mom, dad, and Petunia (which is irrelevant, because it only earns her an eye roll) before moving to go rest in her bedroom. Firstly, she checks her phone, nothing out of the ordinary as she sees her group chatfullof messages, more of the same. And then, a Quibbler post that reads:
“Students from Ravenclaw 11th grade class were forced to clean their whole classroom after mysterious ‘artist(s)’ built ‘sculptures’ by stacking multiple chairs and a large variety of items on top of tables in the middle of the classroom; the school has yet to identify the perpetrators.”
Lily groaned with an eye roll. Did people really prefer reading this kind of story over her meticulously written essays about The National School Green Day? Her theoretical question was quickly answered by opening the group chat. To her distaste, everyone was finding thishilarious. Was she wasting her time? Everyone else seemed content reading about pranks and gossip, so why bother trying to write about things that mattered? So, she opened the group chat again.
James: "You’ve got to admit, Lily, the chair tower thing is hilarious."
Lily: "It’s immature. That’s all anyone cares about nowadays."
Remus: "Pretty sure no one wants to read about tree-planting day either…"
Lily: "I hope you get a splinter."
Pandora POV:
People could tell her once, twice, or an infinite amount of times that she could sit on a bed, chair, pillow, or blankets, and she’d still say “No, thanks” before sitting straight on the floor. It's for some reason therapeutic, cold, and it grounded her. So, she sits on her bedroom floor, surrounded by a variety of candles, paper, a mirror, and holding her phone. The warm, amber glow of the candles danced across her walls as she finished typing her latest post for The Quibbler. Sometimes, posting on it sends a shiver down her spine.
She started the page as a joke in her friend group, and then it spiraled into something so much bigger and when she noticed, half the school followed the page and waited daily for updates.
Now, she has a principal who is desperately trying to find who keeps posting there, and the weight of it pressed on her. The posts were no longer harmless fun, a bunch of people had their social lives ruined or slightly altered by a single post she’d made if not several. Her thumb hovered over her phone screen as she whispered to no one, “Maybe this one will be the last.”
Then she shook her head. That was a lie she’d told herself a hundred times. So, yeah, it is pretty stressful.
But not today. No, today has gone wonderfully well, and mainly because she mether fairyin real life. She was radiant, just like in her dreams. Excitedly, Pandora turns around and tells her twin brother, Evan Rosier, who is lazing in her bed.
“I saw a fairy today, my dream fairy, actually.”
Which earns her a very simple and unfazed.
“Nice.”
Because Evan has definitely heard Pandora say worse, and he always replies unconcerned. Pandora groaned but smiled despite herself. That was Evan for you—calm, unbothered, and never one to make her feel silly, no matter how strange her ideas sounded. It is one of the multiple reasons why she adored him. No matter how eccentric or dreamy she got, he always made her feel… normal, like the things she says are normal, and that’s one of the million reasons she loves him and her friends. They make her feelnormal. The things she likes and says arenormalbecause why wouldn’t they be?
She doesn’t want to stay awake anymore, she wants to go back to sleep so she can take in her sight again, talk to her more, and relearn how to talk over her sight all over again, because now she knows her name, after all these years.
Lily Evans.
Pandora remembers seeing her walk in like it came out of a romance movie, in slow-mo. At the time, she had a frustrated look on her face, and she just wanted to hold her arm and ask her what was bothering her, and how she could help. Pandora always helped everyone, she’s really good at that, right?
Instead, she drew her, and too scared for Lily to be the first one to take a step back and leave, she rushed out of the school not looking behind.
“I think I want to see her again. No—I need to see her again.”
He rolled his eyes but sat up, stretching his arms over his head. “Right now?”
“Yes. Right now.”
Evan didn’t argue. He never did when it came to her whims. He simply got up, shoved his feet into his sneakers, and motioned for her to hurry up.
Pandora smiled as she flopped onto her bed. The cluttered floor— the mess of papers, candles, and pencils, which she leaves for ‘her future self’ — could wait until morning.
Now, wanting to see her again, after the long day she had been cleaning the Ravenclaw classroom (which sheknowswas a prank made by the little famous group at school), she closes her eyes.
Her mornings go something along the lines of waking up, tripping on the mess she made the night prior, paying respect at her small altars (Apollo is always the most eager in the morning to no one's surprise), feeding her two snakes and her Gekko, and doing the rest of her basic life tasks, like taking 35 minutes asking Evan which outfit fits her vibe for the day best (which he pretended to hate, but she figured he liked the routine after awhile). Then, she’s driven to school alongside Evan and her younger brother, Felix, by their chauffeur. Somedays, Regulus rides along with her, and other days, like today, he refuses because he needs to revise in the car alone, or just doesn't want to talk in general.
Pandora arrives at school just in time to see her best friend, Dorcas Meadowes, walk in the gate. She whistles at her, it's something they’ve been doing since they met last year, a very specific whistle song they both know and love, a sign they never miss that they are both close to each other. Dorcas promptly turns around and stands at the door, waiting for Pandora and Evan to catch up.
These mornings are Pandora's favorites when shecan actuallycatch up with her friends before they eventually leave her to go to their classroom. She’s Ravenclaw and they are Slytherin, so their classrooms are a little far away some days, so they all tend to use the time when they arrive to talk and plan where they’ll have lunch. And Pandora knows she and Dorcas love it because it's during this small amount of time, that Pandora always shows her best friend her sketchbook, or lends it to her when the time is even shorter. They both grew especially close to each other one random day when Dorcas told her she loved her outfit, her braids jewelry, her shoes, and her earrings. Honestly, she complimented everything she had on, and they both found out they had a love for everything art, clothing, and creative, except Pandora was the only one of the two of them whoactually drew, so she always showed Dorcas her drawings and giggled as she stared at the pages in awe.
That instantly reminded Pandora to tell Dorcas abouther fairy, which she doesn’t think she can keep to herself any longer, she would definitely jump on a table and scream “I found her! She’s real and she smells like a mix of cherry, cinnamon, sweet and warm and like an afternoon spent baking home!”. She mentioned it very briefly, and Dorcas simply congratulated her before they were both slammed into from the back. She took a small step forward and let out an audibleoof.
Pandora was expecting to be bothered by someone telling them to stop being weird and move out of the way, but instead, they both turned around, Dorcas with her default mean face on, and weren't surprised to see Barty had arrived.
Barty used to be a Ravenclaw, but after a lot of misdemeanors and a lot of pouting, they moved him to Slytherin. Even though he's younger than her and in a different class because of that, sometimes she imagines what it would've been like to have afriend in her classroom. She wants so desperately to do all the cliché things she writes about on Social media sometimes – get caught throwing notes, talking and giggling in class, joking around with teachers, and watching as they don't understand what she's saying.
But she's not ungrateful, because if she had no friend group, too, she'd be imagining her life with one.
Tuning back into the conversation, she watches as Dorcas lectures Barty on how it should be illegal to have a grin that big on his face at the crack of dawn, and Pandora denies it.
“Well, imagine we were all frowning at the crack of dawn - the sun is getting up and showering us just for us to be mad? That sounds like a nightmare.”
And, funnily enough, a frowning Regulus steps up next to her.
“Ah, he's the only exception.”
She said this before the whole group burst into laughs and chuckles, alongside Regulus' groan and eye roll. Pandoraloves Regulus; she almost treats him like her younger brother, except slightly more affectionately and less teasingly. That’s Dorcas' job. After his relationship with Sirius drifted, the group had completely taken on the role of being Regulus' only family, because they watched as Regulus witnessed Sirius build a family bond with his friends, almost forgetting that hedidhave a younger brother. Pandora didn’t fully believe that, though. She knew Sirius most likely still cared about Regulus, she could almostfeelhis worry when he passed by her in the hall. But Regulus doesn’t want to hear about it, and sometimes it feels good to just complain and cry without having someone wanting to fix things, so she will never push.
“Good morning to you all, too.” He scoffed, finally speaking before staring at Barty, who had his arm around Evan’s shoulder. “Barty you do know we have a small test now, correct?” Barty just let out a small whine and looked up, like the sky would give him the answers he needed. “Fuck me, I forgot. Can I quickly check your notes?” He asked Regulus because he knew he’d comply, he always does. Barty is… smart? Kind of, not really, he’s more insane than smart, but he does have a photographic memory, and Regulus's highlighted notebook always helped his brain remember everything before any test, and he always got a good enough grade to just pass any test, something Regulus’ didn’t admit to, but he washighlyjealous of him for.
“The first party the Hufflepuff are hosting this year will only be on Halloween, and I was thinking we could all match costumes,” Dorcas suggested, and it was a damn good idea, but Pandora knew they’d take way too long to decide on something, and Regulus would mostdefinitelyhate everything they picked, that’s when Barty comes in and either begs or forces him into the fun.
“We still have 3 weeks until then, but I just wanted to let the idea float around first, just so you all can think of an answer until then.”
“I’m probably not going,” Regulus stated firmly, making everyone squint their eyes and glare at him like he just offended someone’s grandma. “What? Unless you guys are willing to ask my parents for me to go, I’m not stepping outside of the house to go to a party out of all places.”
Regulus parents. This is the kind of topic Pandora is the one that gets involved. Her parents and his parents are, theoretically speaking “close”. That’s how she managed to drag him to come to public school with her, and she’ll gladly carry with all of the consequences and blame if it means making his life a little less miserable. So, she simply smiled and said “Don’t worry about it.”, everyone's gaze shifted onto her, especially Evans and Regulus, as they all got giddy over it.
“Dora,” Regulus replied, that warning tone in his voice mixed with fear. She’s heard it multiple times by now and barely needs to look at him to understand what it means.
“Reg, trust me, okay? I would never put you in danger. Not in a million years.” She said warmly, reassuring him. Regulus tends to need reassuranceconstantly, most definitely a consequence of his home environment. He sighs, ultimately giving up and staring at his wristwatch watch, 8:05 AM, so finally it means Pandora needs to leave them to their Slytherin business and go to her Ravenclaw business. Accidentally, her face splits into a sad smile, and bags her sketchbook again, swinging her brown messenger bag back on her shoulder.
“I’ll see you guys at lunch, same spot as usual.” She affirms, turning around and hearing as Barty gets smacked harshly on the back of his head for ‘wanting to accompany her to her classroom’, which anyone who knows Barty knows is just an excuse to skip a few minutes of class.
On her way to her classroom, she sees the popular Griffyindor friend group loudly arguing in the hallway, or at least the only 3 of them that have enough energy to do that at the crack of dawn, one of them she evidently recognizes as Sirius. The rest of the friends watched, eyes still heavy with sleep and helplessly pinching their noses. There was no way for her to be able to heaves drop the conversation without anyone noticing her doing so, the hall was busy as everyone rushed to their classrooms, but she did hear a very loud “You're being unreasonable! Like, hear me out–” before completely tuning out the conversation as she walked deeper into the hall.
And then, something completely different caught her eye, and her, or she should saysomeone. Her fairy. Is it bad she keeps calling her that even though she knows her name? It’s fine, she doesn’t say that to her face. Their eyes met for less than a second, but it was more than enough for Pandora to make a muse out of Lily. She was able to memorize every single one of her freckles that must've been drawn on carefully by a God, she bets, and how her hair strands delicately fell on her face. Her mind wonders then how Lily was sent by a God, and Pandora can only try to guess why as she walks to her desk in the classroom, preparing her different pencil cases, notebook, and sketchbook.